• Capt. Praveen Davar

The results of the general elections held in February 1971 turned out to be an overwhelming personal triumph for Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and a rude shock to the Opposition. Congress (R), as it was then called, swept the polls, winning 352 of the 518 Lok Sabha seats. This gave the party a two-thirds majority.

Almost immediately after the 1971 general elections, a major political-military crisis broke out in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). India was inevitably drawn into the fray, leading to a bloody war between India and Pakistan. In December 1970, General Yahya Khan, the military dictator of Pakistan, held free election in which Bengal’s Awami Party under the popular leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman won more than 99 per cent Assembly. But the Army and Yahya Khan, backed by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the leading politician of West Pakistan, refused to let the Awami Party form the government.

Dark clouds started gathering over India’s eastern border. On March 25, 1971, the Pakistani military junta began a crackdown on the people of East Pakistan. It soon turned into a large-scale genocide. The atrocities committed by the Pakistan Army gave rise to the birth of Mukti Bahini, a potent guerrilla force and face of Bengali resistance. People of East Bengal started fleeing to India from atleast four directions – towards W. Bengal, Assam, Tripura and Meghalaya. By November 1971, the number of refugees from the East Bengal in India had reached 10 million. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi rose to the challenge with determination and a renewed confidence acquired after having won a massive mandate in the Lok Sabha elections. Throughout the crisis, she acted not only with immense courage but also abundant caution. She did not want to strengthen the Pakistani propaganda that the movement for autonomy in East Pakistan was nothing but an Indian conspiracy, neither did she want to do anything which could lead to India being accused of violating international laws and norms.

The Prime Minister followed a multi-pronged strategy. She realized that international opinion had to be won over to the cause of Bangladesh and the world made aware of India’s unbearable burden of refugees. From July to November 1971, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her Foreign Minister, Swaran Singh globe-trotted across the Western world, attempting to build a consensus to force a UN resolution condemning Pakistani atrocities in Bangladesh. India not only gave sanctuary to the Bangladeshi government-in-exile but also trained and equipped the Mukti Bahini. India recognized Bangladesh and backed it with strong military action. The Indian strategy was to hold the Pakistani forces in the western sector through strong defensive action, while waging a short, swift and decisive war in the east. The U.S. government moved two resolutions in the UN Security Council proposing a ceasefire and mutual troop withdrawal, but these were vetoed by the Soviet Union.

In desperation, President Richard Nixon ordered the American Seventh Fleet to set sail for the Bay of Bengal. But India’s ‘Iron Lady’ was not to be cowed down by any threat. She asked General Manekshaw to direct the Eastern Command to speed up operations. The Indian Army, actively assisted by the Mukti Bahini, virtually ran through East Bengal and reached Dacca within 13 days. A defeated and demoralized 93,000-strong Pakistan Army led by Lt. Gen. A.A.K. Niazi was made to surrender on December 16. The following day, the Indian government announced a unilateral ceasefire on the western front. Pakistan was reported to have lost half its Navy, a quarter of its Air Force and a third of its army. The war stripped the nation of more than half of its population. Bangladesh was founded, and 10 million refugees returned to their homeland with cries of ‘Joy Indira Gandhi, Joy Bangladesh’. While A.B. Vajpayee, then a 47-year-old parliamentarian, likened Indira Gandhi to ‘Durga’, the Economist dubbed her ‘Empress of India’. It was Indira’s, and India’s, finest hour.

The year 1972, which was also the twenty-fifth year of India’s Independence, marked the beginning of a new period in which conditions were ripe for the government to fulfill its electoral promises. There was political stability in the country; the government had a two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha; the Indians had acquired fresh and heightened self-confidence in their own capacities and capabilities as well as faith in the political leadership. During 1971-74, the government undertook several measures to implement its left-of-centre agenda. In August 1972, general insurance was nationalized and five months later the coal industry. Ceilings were imposed on urban land ownership. The MRTP Act to check concentration of industrial enterprises in a few hands had already been passed in 1969 and a MRTP Commission appointed in 1971 to implement the Act. But Indira Gandhi refused to go any further in nationalizing industry, despite pressure from the CPI and leftists within her party; she remained fully committed to a mixed economy. Legislation to reduce ceilings on agricultural landholdings and distribute surplus land to the landless and marginal farmers was also passed in several states. The central government initiated a programme of cheap foodgrain distribution to the economically vulnerable sections of society and a crash scheme for creating employment in rural areas. It also made it compulsory for nationalized banks to open branches in under banked areas such as small towns, rural clusters and the poorer parts of the cities and to make credit available to small industries, farmers, road transporters and self-employed persons.

Then, suddenly in 1973, the tide changed for Indira Gandhi. The economy, the polity and the credibility of Indira Gandhi’s leadership and Congress government started going downhill. The disillusionment found expression in J.P. movement of 1974. It was followed by the Emergency in 1975. The democratic system in India not only survived the JP Movement and the Emergency but emerged stronger. In this sense, the lifting of the Emergency and the free elections that followed, were a defining moment in India’s post-independence history. They revealed the Indian people’s underlying attachment to democratic values which were in turn the result of the impact of the freedom struggle and the experience of democratic functioning, including free elections, since 1947. Whatever the character of the JP Movement or the Emergency regime, there is no doubt that the decision of Smt. Gandhi to hold genuinely free elections, and her defeat and the Opposition’s victory that followed were a remarkable achievement of Indian democracy. The years 1975-77 have be described as the years of the ‘test of democracy’; there is no doubt that the Indian people passed the test with distinction if not full marks.

After having been out of office for thirty-four months, Smt. Indira Gandhi was once again the Prime Minister and Congress was restored to its old position as the dominant party. Though hesitatingly, India once again resumed its tasks of planning the economic development with greater financial allocations being made for the purpose. The government also took note of the changes in world economy and their impact on India and, while making efforts to strengthen the public sector, initiated measures for what has come to be known as ‘Economic Liberalization.’ But the government proceeded very gradually and hesitatingly because Indira Gandhi was worried about the role of multinational corporations eroding India’s self-reliance. The government, however, succeeded in raising the rate of economic growth to over 4 per cent per year, with a large increase in agricultural and petroleum crude production and in gradually bringing down the rate of inflation to 7 per cent in 1984. India under her leadership, was one of the few countries to overcome the oil-shock of the seventies. The success of the Green Revolution made India self-sufficient in foodgrains and broke its dependence on food imports.

Indira Gandhi’s government also achieved some success in foreign policy. In March 1983, India hosted the seventh summit of the Non-Aligned Movement with Indira Gandhi as its Chairman. As formal leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, she actively worked for a new international economic order that would be fairer to the developing countries. Indira Gandhi tried to improve India’s relations with the US despite its tilt towards Pakistan. She also tried to normalize relations with China and Pakistan, despite the latter’s support to the terrorists in Punjab. She did not, however, hesitate to order the Army in April 1984 to deploy a brigade at the Siachen glacier along the line of control in Kashmir.

On the morning of October 31, 1984, Indira Gandhi’s long tenure as Prime Minister was brought to an end by her assassination by two members of her security guard. The Congress immediately elected her forty-year-old son, Rajiv Gandhi as Prime Minister.

The Green Revolution, lifting millions of Indian above poverty line and creation of Bangladesh as an independent and sovereign country will remain the greatest achievement of the ‘Indira ear’(‘Indira Year’). But no less were her accomplishments in the field of science and technology. India took a giant leap forward in high technology areas, space and nuclear energy.

The first nuclear explosion in Pokhran in 1974 and the development of indigenous satellite system and sending the first Indian into space were the high points of Smt. Gandhi’s 16 years tenure as Prime Minister. She was undoubtedly India’s most popular leader after Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru and the greatest woman political leader in human history.

(The writer is a former Secretary, AICC and Editor, the Secular Saviour)